


Harold to the Infinite Power

by Wasuremono



Category: Stranger Than Fiction (2006)
Genre: Alternate Reality, F/M, Meta, Yuletide 2008
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-07
Updated: 2011-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-21 03:02:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/220173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wasuremono/pseuds/Wasuremono
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Harold Crick is introduced to the concept of fanfiction and what it means to his life -- or, perhaps, his lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Harold to the Infinite Power

**Author's Note:**

  * For [k4writer02](https://archiveofourown.org/users/k4writer02/gifts).



> This piece was written as a treat for Yuletide 2008 and was by far the best-received of my stories that year, probably by virtue of ending up on a metafic roundup list. It was my first and thus far only dabbling in meta-fanwork, but I think it's only appropriate given the source material.

The first time Harold Crick met himself, he was spending his lunch hour in the park on what had seemed like a normal day. It was 12:27 on the dot, the air carrying the first chilly breezes of autumn, and the whole world was blessedly quiet. (Even months after he'd last heard Karen Eiffel's voice, he couldn't help but be grateful for the silence in his head.)

Harold worked idly on his sandwich, making a mental note to thank Ana properly for the bread that night, when he heard the soft mechanical sounds of a wheelchair coming up the path. He didn't recognize the two distant figures at first, but as they drew closer, it was impossible not to recognize them: himself in the wheelchair, with Ana pushing.

What was this? Undiagnosed brain damage from the accident? The psychotic break everyone'd told him was coming the first time around? Harold blinked hard, but he couldn't stop seeing it, even as the pair passed close to his bench. Up close, a few differences were obvious; the Harold in the chair was thinner, face pale and drawn, and the Ana pushing him had the look of a desperate attempt at good cheer, the kind of expression that reminded him of bad nights in the hospital.

Just before they passed him entirely, the other Harold turned to look at him, and for a moment their eyes met. Something twitched in his other self's face, and Harold turned away, unable to confront it. There had been recognition there, clearly, something beyond any chance resemblance or trick of his own mind.

Yes, he decided, he needed to call Dr. Hilbert.  


* * *

"Harold," said Dr. Hilbert that afternoon, "it's not Karen this time. I called her as soon as we were off the phone. She reassured me that she wasn't planning any revisions on _Death and Taxes_ , and she didn't have any old drafts that match what you described. It doesn't fit her profile, anyway, to disable characters rather than kill them. You're sure you weren't just seeing things?"

"I'm sure," Harold replied. "The man in that chair was me, or some version of me, anyway. He couldn't have been just a stranger; it really felt like he had the same moment of recognition I did. There were a few differences between us, but we could still both tell who we were. Does that make any sense?"

Dr. Hilbert paused for thought. "In a certain schema, yes, actually. Are you at all familiar with the concept of 'fan-fiction'?"

"No?"

"It's a form of transformative writing, essentially; fans of media write their own stories based around that media. Quite frequently, it involves extensive revisions of the events of the original story, often based around a perceived inadequacy in the text or a shared para-textual premise for exploration. Given the ending of the novel as stands, it seems likely there are at least a few fans writing such works about you -- or, rather, somebody very much like you but not quite identical. Hold on a second?"

Harold watched as Dr. Hilbert crossed to his desk, typing quickly and nodding as whatever he was searching for came up on the screen. "Yes, yes, this would follow. I've got 57 discrete hits for 'harold crick deathfic' on one cursory Googling, and... hmm... 489 for 'harold crick fanfic wheelchair.' Yes, indeed, Harold, it would seem that there are quite a few people on the Internet who aren't happy with you."

"But..." Harold stopped; he had too many questions, and he was pretty sure that the first, "is this legally actionable?", wasn't entirely germane. "I don't understand," he decided on at last. "You can't just decide a book is wrong, can you?"

"Why can't you? You decided _Death and Taxes_ was wrong, after all."

"But I was the main character!"

"And they're the main fixtures of their own world," replied Dr. Hilbert. "It's all a sort of elaborate community-building exercise, the Internet's equivalent of campfire stories, and if they want to decide a particular source is valid or invalid, the worst crime they can conceivably be accused of is bad taste."

"I'll take your word for it," said Harold, otherwise at a loss for words.

"I know it's a lot to take in, Harold. If it's any comfort, the fact that you saw an alternate version of yourself suggests that their revisions aren't going to affect your real life. You ought to be glad you're still canonical."

"I guess so. Look, give me your professional opinion: how do I explain this to Ana?"

"Why worry about it?" said Dr. Hilbert. "Wait until it comes up. For all you know, you might never see another Harold Crick."

Harold considered this, but it didn't take any heavy arithmetic to calculate the potential density of Harold Cricks in Chicago alone. He'd be lucky to make a week.  


* * *

  


It took 16 days, actually, before he and Ana ran into the next Harold Crick on the street. This one was sporting a crisp red polo shirt and an unusually modern haircut, and he was walking hand-in-hand with a similarly modern Dave. The two were clearly in their own world, so Harold didn't even try to make eye contact; besides, there were some questions he simply wasn't prepared to ask.

"You didn't tell me you had a gay twin brother," commented Ana idly as they walked. "Or that he was dating Dave's gay twin brother."

"Er. It's a little more complicated than that. Have you ever heard of fanfiction?"

From Ana's grin, Harold was guessing he wouldn't have to explain further. "Yeah, you hear things. Let me guess: _Death and Taxes_ again?"

"Dr. Hilbert thinks so. That somebody out there's writing their own versions of it, and that's rewriting me -- not _me_ me, but other mes. I don't even know how many of me there might be out there."

"Does it matter?"

Now that was a good question. "I guess not," said Harold. "It's startling, though."

"Life's startling," replied Ana. "It's messy and it's crazy, especially when the Internet's involved. So what if there are a thousand of you? They'll live their lives, and we'll live ours. Now c'mon. We'll be late to the show."

Well, Harold thought, that was easy. Leave it to Ana to keep him from dwelling on that particular Dave and his very strange world of two.  


* * *

Within a few months, it became as normal as it was ever going to be. He'd see himself in passing in the street -- a version of himself with an unusual scar or a different companion -- and he'd smile, shrug, and keep on walking. At least once he found another Harold behind the counter at Starbucks, carefully measuring the ratios of coffee and milk; he left a generous tip. When the posters started to show up around town announcing another one of himself live in concert, he made a mental note to pick up tickets. Life went on, just with more familiar faces in unfamiliar roles.

And that was the miraculous thing, wasn't it? Everyone could live a thousand lives, or a million, branching out like the fragile arms of a fractal; it was only that he, or they, lived them all in parallel. Harold Crick had become something like unto the Mandelbrot set, with the whims of the Internet as the equation at the heart of it all. It was lovely, when he thought about it that way.

And if that wasn't, the look on Ana's face certainly was when she'd picked up a new idea from some fanfic or other. Could there be any better proof of the value of transformative works?


End file.
